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Adamas, Diamond

Adamas, Diamond Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
NATURAL PROPERTIES.
37
NATURAL PROPERTIES.
The Diamond is highly electric, attracting light objects when heated by friction; and alone amongst gems has the peculiarity of becoming phosphorescent in the dark, after long exposure to the sun's rays. The Romans attributed magnetic powers to the Diamond in a much higher degree than to the Loadstone ; so much so that they believed the latter was totally deprived of all its power in the presence of the Diamond ; but this notion is quite un­grounded. Their sole idea of magnetism was that of attraction : seeing therefore the stone possessed this for certain objects, the step to ascribing to it a superiority in this, as in all other respects, over the Loadstone, was easy to their lively imagina­tions, unfettered by experiment. This connexion of ideas is still preserved in the French word for Magnet, "Pierre d'Ai-mant," from the low Latin " petra de Adamante," which in an­other form gives "Diamant." The Orientals, improving upon this notion, assigned to the Diamond a discriminating magnetism consistent with its pre-eminent dignity; for M. Ben Mansur states, " The Diamond has an affinity for gold, small particles of which fly towards it. It is also wonderfully sought after by ants, which crowd over it as though they would swallow it up."
Though an antidote against all poisons when worn on the finger, yet during the Middle Ages it was considered the most deadly of all if swallowed. This is laid down as an indubitable fact by that famous physician Camillo Leonardo, in 1504. Thus Cellini tells how his life was preserved from the machinations of his enemy P. L. Farneso by the roguery of the apothecary, who, being employed to pulverize a diamond intended to season the artist's salad, substituted a bit of beryl in its stead. It is likewise enumerated amongst the poisons administered to Sir T. Overbury when a prisoner in the Tower. Garcias takes some pains to overthrow this long-established opinion, by quoting in­stances of slaves in the mines swallowing large diamonds, for the sake of embezzling them, without the least injury to their stomachs: and a woman (in a case known to him) had adminis­tered doses of diamond-dust for many days continuously to her
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